Design Thinking Blog

Erin Gibbs is a Graphic Designer and Illustrator. She works in water colour, pencil crayon and gouache. Her work is very light and playful, with pieces that show her personality through them.

Erin came to talk to a group of Graphic Design students to share her experiences with her career in graphic design and illustration. The students were then instructed to create a piece, that Erin was the inspiration.

When looking through Erins portfolio, she has lots of hand drawn illustrations of nature and thinks she enjoys in her life, like plants, animals and bikes. All the illustrations are very colourful, hand drawn or painted with a lot of texture.

I chose to draw on Illustrator a lineup of plants that I’ve been growing while being stuck inside my house alone for a month. Since I used light Pastel colours, and added a shadow gradient to give it some depth. Erin doesn’t do this in her work, but it’s something That I do to my pieces that give it some depth.

I then added some grit/grunge texture to my illustration, which is something I don’t usually experiment with, because I believe this is what gave it that Erin Gibbs flare.

A survey was done on two people who make coffee at home, to find out what their experience is. Both participants had completely different ways of making coffee. One has a machine that does it all for them, which doesn't create that much frustrations, however, the price of the coffee machine was a few hundred dollars. The other uses a french-press and grinds their own coffee beans, which seems to equate to them having more of a process and a mess to clean up.

Online Solutions:

Coffee sacks, this would be a great single-serving solution to avoid the mess, however you wouldn't be able to use them in all coffee machines.

A biodegradable container that keeps your coffee airtight. Wide opening for scooping. 

Single serving pre-ground coffee, however, this does create more waste overall.

The coffee pouch comes with coffee grounds preserved. all you do is pour in water and let it filter the coffee through, and serve right out of the bag. This is a great solution for camping, but maybe not everyday use, as we should try not to use plastics.

Circular Design is the design process cycle, that repeats over and over. What does this mean? If it keeps repeating, when have we finished the project?

At first, I believed that this meant we use the cycle until the client is satisfied with the work and pays us. However, what it really means, is that we are truly never done with our designs. When we create packaging for our favorite cereal, we are also designing how it will be displayed on the shelf. We are designing the packaging materials to be more eco-friendly so it doesn't become plastics that are in the ocean. We are designed for future use and thought, as we are designing for the physical thing.

Of course, we don't have to have these considerations when we design, as this may not matter to your client, but it does make us better designers if we do consider the future. When you can educate your client on how it can be displayed it shows that you are working for their benefit. And when you are thinking about the environment, it shows people not connected to the project that you care.

In class, we watched a film that spoke about the Design Thinking Process and how it affected designers in the industry today, and how they came to discover the process.

“Design is a sport that you have to participate in... you can't get excited if you don't participate” Said one of the designers in this film. I believe this statement is true with my experience working with non-designers. Us as designers get very excited about things like hierarchy and kerning, however, the non-designers either don't care or they just see the bigger picture that we may miss, because we've been working on the project for too long.

“We live in a material age ... What is good design?” another designer in the film said. I believe what they're saying is that good design may be subjective. What I consider as good design if it solves the original problem. You make create something that is aesthetically pleasing, however it may not actually fit the original client brief, or it may affect the user experience.

We’re starting to see more tradeshows, conventions and other large events pop up throughout major cities, with hundreds of thousands of people attending them each year. But what we don't consider, is the design and planning that it takes, to prevent utter chaos.

Event planners use the Design Process to create these events and different types of experiences for the attendees. “Such a massive citywide event, therefore, requires a complex structural framework to control the chaos.”

The problem is, only 20% of event planners use the Design Thinking Process and the management software. Making it difficult to follow through on the Empathy and Test steps. They aren't able to receive proper data to understand the attendee's behavior, making it difficult to make any improvements for future events.

“The stages of design thinking lend themselves well to the creation of authentic event experiences, by first walking in the shoes of the individual attendee” Event Planners need to captivate their audience, to get them in the door and coming back each year. Without just guessing what you believe would work for your attendees, Design Thinking lets you do the research, plan, and test to make sure your event goes without a hitch. 

In this assignment, we were instructed to re-create the Design Thinking hexagon process, that all of us designers have seen many times.

For myself, I learn better visually, so if there are illustrations or diagrams, I not only can comprehend something easier, but I am also able to remember it longer. I decided to make a comic strip out of the Design Thinking process, making the illustrations give a meaning behind each step.

Empathize: I have two hands shaking. This represents a meeting with the client in person. Having a conversation, and understanding where they are coming from, and what their story is.

Define: A detective that is on the case to solve the client's problem.

Ideate: Something that is drilled into our brains from the beginning. Drawing thumbnails of ideas, and getting it all down on paper.

Prototype: A origami bird, which represents our drafts, and different versions we go through, in order to get out all the kinks of our designs.

In Natasha Jen’s 99U conference talk, she argues as to why she believes that the 5 step process of Design Thinking is “B.S.”.

Jen’s Design Thinking definition:

“ Design Thinking packages a designer's way of working for a non-designer audience by codifying their processes into a perspective, step-by-step approach to creative problem solving — claiming that it can be applied by anyone to any problem.”

She believes that the 5 step Design Thinking process is missing critiques as a critical step, as well as designers should be using more tools and that their workspace should be messy.

Richard Banfield, however, doesn’t agree with Jen. In his article “Design Thinking is BS”, is BS, Banfield contradicts all of Jen’s arguments, he states that Jen doesn’t have any evidence that the Design Thinking process isn’t effective.

I believe that for learning design in a university setting, Design Thinking is very valuable. It helps you understand the client and their needs, have some form of organization and help form positive habits. Without being introduced to Design Thinking in any form, a new designer may get very overwhelmed, and may not come out with the best solution.

There is one thing I do agree with Jen on, and that critiquing is a very important part of the process, and should be labeled as a sixth step. Even though some critiques are not as valuable as others, I believe that it is very important to get outside perspectives, and you may discover something that you weren’t thinking of before.

Blog 1: Design Thinking by Tim Brown

In this article, Tim Brown talks about his definition of Design Thinking, and how his company IDEO, uses it for their own projects and how to use Design Thinking to answer all of the big questions that come up for their company.

Tim starts off by stating that there is no single definition for design thinking. “Its an idea, a strategy, a method, and a way of seeing the world.” He believes that it is the process to solve problems by using creativity. Tim’s definition of design thinking makes humans the center of the design, by listening to them and meeting their needs, through Ideation, Inspiration, and implementation.

I believe when organizations use Design Thinking to focus on people as the core of their designs, it will lead to much better designs and solutions. It will allow people who are not designers to use creative tools to solve their problems. And it will help designers work well with noncreative team members, to solve the problems that the designer may not have to skill or knowledge to solve.